Blender has a reputation for being difficult to navigate, but you can get around just fine with Mac trackpad gestures—you just need to set things up properly:

Step 1.
Go to File / User Preferences.

Step 2.
Go to the Input tab.

Step 3.
Make sure the Presets drop-down menu is set to Blender. (An option for Maya controls was a nice idea…but it’s Maya’s older control scheme that requires a middle mouse button. So it’s not going to help us.)